Metamorphoses of living and dying paintings

Abstract

My Masters degree work [ The structural colour paintings ] were showcased at the Academy of Fine Arts annual degree show: KUVAN KEVÄT ’23. The work consisted of three large-scale paintings.

In this written part, I delve into how this body of work came to be, and my fascination with the iridescence produced by a petroleum oil slick upon water. This ethereal colour echos the environmental changes, as well as being entangled in other calamities of our moment in time.

I have been searching for a new language of painting that responds to our contemporary experience of a changing environment. I felt frustrated with landscape painting, and how maddeningly out of touch it feels considering our ecological realities. I want my paintings to embrace the real, the now. I am interested in the scientific process, and in using colour as a bioindicator revealing invisible changes.

My Master’s studies enabled me to shift towards experimental materiality and a practice that combined chemistry with art. I detail the long nights spent in the laboratory and the challenges of transforming traditional painting mediums into these intensely orgasmic colours. Materiality expresses growth and decay of all matter in nature. It invites us to contemplate our own impermanence. The structural colour paintings alter their appearance depending on their environment. Reacting to light, weather, time, space, gravity, and the reflections and movements of living beings to weave a kaleidoscope of colour and moving shadow forms across the canvas. They shimmer and morph like living entities. I have come to realise the importance of how we interact with these paintings – how the experience confronts the observer with their own presence and involvement in the environment. We see ourselves in these living and dying paintings. In this metamorphosis, we may come to grips with our own transience.